


gone but not entirely

by marinersapptcomplex



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Gays being sad, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:15:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26343976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marinersapptcomplex/pseuds/marinersapptcomplex
Summary: It is the saddest thing — to watch someone fall apart when you yourself are tearing at the seams.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	gone but not entirely

**Author's Note:**

> this story is based on the fictional versions of the characters from the TV series. also this has not been edited so if there are any glaring mistakes pls go easy on me

_“Yes, we did many things, then - all_

_Beautiful...”_

_—_ Sappho

_—-_

_—_

_-_

_Last night I dreamt of Okinawa. It was dark but bright. I saw the sun in your eyes, like an apricot, it broke apart and trickled orange down your face. Somewhere, a bomb was going off. You struck a match and lit your pipe._

_I think about the bodies in the mud, their eyes looking up at me. I heard from an English soldier out here that some men are getting shock therapy. Electricity straight to the head. A brother-in-law of his came back from Bastogne and couldn’t talk, so they drugged him, strapped him to a chair, did all sorts of things._

_All politicians and doctors are the same. They see bodies instead of men. Flesh instead of fruit…_

_—_

The sun was hot on the back of Merriell's neck as he sat down to eat. The village of Oia, small and beautiful, stretched ahead of him like some great biblical thing. It was 1951 and the air was creamy with the scent of blossom.

A short Greek man with a gummy smile brought him donuts dusted with sugar, placed them on the table, patted the back of his shoulder.

“Thanks,” he added as the man walked away, though wasn’t sure if he had heard.

After an eight-hour long shift hauling produce on and off of trucks, he would spend most of the evening eating and drinking, occasionally jotting things down in the back of a small, moleskin notebook. Something he had copied off Eugene, wanting to appear respectable to strangers.

Two glasses of wine and another plate of fried dough later, Merriell arrived at the little cave cottage that was his home. His neighbour, Fedra, was squatted down on her doorstep smoking when he moved to open the door. She glanced up and down at him carefully.

A ring of smoke floated into the air before she said, rather bluntly, “You look awful.”

Merriell smiled. “Tired is all.”

“Hm,” she took another drag. “Lots of men look like you. Tired. It is the war, I think.”

Something compelled him to smile harder, thought he wasn’t sure exactly what it would prove. “Goodnight.”

He opened the door, shuffled inside. His nose wrinkled from the smell of Fedra’s cigarette smoke, a scent which he had grown to hate since Okinawa. Tobacco reminded him of mud and blood, the stench of gunpowder and sunburnt flesh. It conjured something dark and wet inside him.

Later: lying in bed. A bottle of cheap wine beside him. The moleskin notebook clasped tightly in his hands.

It was in the quiet moments like this that he thought of Eugene. His red hair in the hot sun. The irritating tone of his voice as he droned on about the semantics of life and death, war and peace. 

It felt strange to think of him now, stranger to think of the war. Often it felt like a dream. When all was said and done in 1945, Merriell had found that life in Louisiana had moved on without him. Without bullet wounds or scars sometimes it felt as if the war had only left a faint imprint on his body, a phantom pain. Never to be seen by anyone else, never to be understood. Like a birthmark that remembered no birth.

Life was a little easier in Greece, he enjoyed the pleasant quietness that being a stranger offered him. Occasionally, he would meet other men from the war, often ones that had served in Europe. They all looked the same. Haggard and dirty, despite their clean-shaven and smart appearances.

Merriell wondered if he appeared the same in the eyes of these men he met. The thought of seeming broken made him feel ill. 

Darkness leeched in from the open window. Merriell reached over and blew the candle out. Next door he could faintly hear Fedra singing something in Greek. He turned over on his side, craving dreamless sleep.

—-

—

-

_The people have suffered terribly here. Just as bad as everyone back home. Famine and decimation. You can’t escape it. Sometimes I sit by the shore and watch the women wash their clothes with babies on their backs, how they don’t complain, don’t say a single thing. It does something to your heart, I tell you._

_I’ve been thinking about a soldier I killed in Peleliu, the only one that never fought back. Just let it happen. I saw the bullet shoot straight through his skull. I still remember the stench of his blood drying in the hot sun… When I was young I used to sneak into pastures and watch the farmers shoot the lame calves in the head. Their bodies always fell to the straw like they didn’t weigh a thing and I just watched, helpless, but never moving to leave, to look away._

_Much to think about. Maybe soon I will write a proper letter and send it. Less to do with blood and war. You perhaps have a family by now._

_—-_

_—_

_-_

At work. Early morning. The sun had not yet risen in the sky. Merriell and a few other local men were hauling crates of apricots into a truck. They were to be delivered to a little old lady that ran a small market on the other side of the village.

During a brief smoke break, one of the men leaned up against the truck. His hand stretched through the air, waving a cigarette in front of Merriell like a wand. “You want?”

He shook his head with a smile. “I’m alright, thanks.”

“I thought Americans were big smokers.”

“I used to be. Not anymore.”

“Ah, I see.” His thumb flicked a lighter, engulfing the tip of the cigarette in flame. Smoke followed. “Don’t you miss it?”

Merriell kind-of shrugged. “Not so much.”

The man smirked and shook his head like, _can you believe this guy?_ He took another drag, exhaling a large plume of smoke that billowed into the air in a perfect cloud. Merriell realised there was something handsome and movie-like about the way he smoked a cigarette. He made it seem so appealing, more appealing than the gap-toothed, dry-lipped smokers back at home.

“You stare a lot,” the words came out as he exhaled. “Big eyes. Like a bug. Scary.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

A nanoscopic moment. A rush of blood under the skin.

The man laughed loudly. His voice thrummed in the quiet, a perfect vibration. “Funny.”

“Well, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The man was staring at him this time, it sent a shiver up his spine. The silence stretched out between them, Merriell opened his mouth, tried and failed to conjure words that might take up the empty space. There was something going on. Cat and mouse. It was difficult to place. A feeling? A sense?

He watched carefully as the man dropped his cigarette onto the dirt road, stomped it out with the heel of his worn shoe. His eyes drifted up to Merriell’s in the soft blue light. The feeling was coming into focus now, getting clearer.

The man stepped forward and cupped Merriell’s face in his hands. His lips met his. Their bodies were melting down into the ground and through the Earth. The inside of the man’s mouth tasted like soil and Catholicism. He couldn’t explain it. 

—-

—

-

They went home together. They talked about the war. It seemed there was nothing else of worth to talk about. During the Nazi occupation, the man had witnessed his mother’s murder, his Jewish friends deportation to Auschwitz, as well as the destruction and suffering of good men and women.

Merriell could not cry for them, it seemed he had run out of tears. The man too seemed numbed. There was emptiness inside his eyes, an aching of some sort.

They shared a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread at dinner, then went back to bed again.

As the man towelled sweat away from his chest, “Your friend. You talk about him a lot in your war stories.”

“Eugene?”

“Yes, good friend. The type of friend you grow old with. Tell stories about.”

“You make him sound like my damn wife.”

The moonlight filtered through the curtains and onto the man’s skin in a blue haze. Outside Merriell could hear the sounds of children laughing. He sat up in bed and stared out the window, lost in a daze.

“You’ve not seen him since the war,” the man grabbed his vest from the floor and began putting it on. “A shame.”

Merriell just hummed quietly. It was one of those things he thought of often inside his head, but never dared to bring up in front of people.

“Why not?”

“He lives in America. Miles and miles away,” Merriell finally turned to face the man. “Probably got his happy-ever-after by now.”

“Happy-ever-after?”

“It’s a —” the words fell away in his mouth. “Never mind.”

“Why not bring him here? Sun is good for soldiers, bright light gets rid of war-pain, dissolves it.” The man noticed the expression on Merriell’s face, furrowed his brows. “It’s true!”

“Sure, sure.” A breeze came through the window in a monumental wave. The curtains flew up — cotton-white wings of a dove. “I’ll tell him that.”

The ticking of a clock. The laughing of children again. Time was moving in jagged pieces. The man crawled onto the bed and lay beside Merriell like a dog. His fingers crept up the stretch of his ribbed, ragged back and drew delicate lines there.

“I sense, maybe, he is more than good friend.”

A laugh, then a sigh. Reality setting in.

The man traced a circle around a mole on his bare shoulder gently. “It is alright, I won’t tell. The ancient greeks used to write all about old lovers: their secrets, tragedies. It is all very fitting, you see.”

Pugnaciously: “We’re not lovers.”

“Not yet.”

Merriell turned over and flicked the man’s nose. “Watch it, Romeo.”

The man laughed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Silence settled like dust after a moment. ”You should write a letter.”  
  
“Stop talking,” everything was very still as Merriell moved closer to the man. “Just kiss me.”

He did. The world fell away. Later, after the man had left, Merriell lay awake in bed writing in his moleskin notebook about how lovely it had all been.

—-

—

-

_Men would marry in ancient Greece and no one would blink an eye. Did you ever hear about Hadrian and Antinous? The emperor who went mad with grief when his male lover drowned in the River Nile…_

_Last night a moth the size of a baseball flew past my window. I tried to catch it, tried to hold it in my hands. Even now I day dream of its milk-spotted wings in my palms._

_All I want is to break into two pieces, move as a pair, rather than one._

_How else to say it…?_ _I miss you_ _._

_—-_

_—_

_-_

Merriell picked up a few apricots and cycled down to the shore to stare at the sail-boats on the water. The sun and salt reminded him of the littlest things. Memories were always unmooring from the deepest, most cavernous parts of his mind — slipping in and out of focus.

His family could never afford to go anywhere abroad, this he remembered well. Most times they would wander down to Cypremort Point Beach. His sister would do handstands on the sea-soaked sand and he would just watch, clapping and cheering her on.

He played with the older kids on the beach sometimes, admired them, pined over them. One boy used to hold his hand as they ran into the water together, even though it was clammy and hot and his heartbeat was pulsing through his skin.

At Okinawa: skeletal and sodden with hot mud. Eugene turned to Merriell in the dark and said, “You can’t go, you know. I’ll kill you if you die.”

Maybe he was sleep-talking. It came out of nowhere. Merriell said nothing but he felt everything: a dull ache in his chest, a pain in his face and hands, the rushing sting of _something_ in his stomach. He was a kid again, back on the beach, with the same clammy hands and fast heartbeat.

A breeze picked up in the air, he could hear the sails on the boats whip and crack in the distance. After a moment of stillness, he ate the last apricot, then got up and wandered towards the post office to send a telegram.

—-

—

-

The telegram went like this:

SLEDGEHAMMER.

IN GREECE. WILL NOT BORE YOU WITH PARTICULARS. IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO COME STAY. CATCH YOU…

SNAFU

—-

—

-

He dreamt violently the next night. There was a barren land with a dying sun and no life left to be lived. The heat was suffocating. He knew Eugene was sitting beside him, but never turned to look, to check and see. Something dark and wet was stopping him from doing so.

“What do you think death’s like?” Eugene’s voice came out like mud.

“I don’t know,” Merriell tried to say quietly, but it came out loud and jagged.

A bird flew past overhead. It was blue, but a shade that Merriell had never seen before in his life.

“Hey, are you listening?”

Merriell wasn’t. “Where are we?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Eugene said. “My dad used to take me shooting here.”

“Here?” Merriell repeated like some broken thing.

“Yes, here.”

“I can’t see anything for miles,” he propped his hand over his eyes so he could see.

“Everything’s a target, you just have to know where to look.”

Merriell leaned back on the heels of his hands and let them sink into the sand. He looked down and saw that the sand had in fact turned to wood shavings.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” he said, and laughed for no reason.

“What?”

“It’s a saying.”

“Oh,” Merriell didn’t question it.

The world around them seemed to be breaking open like an eggshell. The sky was purple mixed with white and the clouds looked like they were thinning out towards God. A slant of light danced down from above them and Merriell caught a cupful of it in his hands.

“There wasn’t a point to the war, was there?”

Something which was not sadness but felt quite a lot like it fell over him in a great wave. 

_“_ No,” Merriell breathed. “There wasn’t.”

—-

—

-

He received a telegram back:

SNAFU.

WHERE AND WHEN? SICK TO DEATH OF MOBILE. EVERYONE GETTING MARRIED. SEE YOU SOON.

SLEDGEHAMMER.

—-

—

-

The telegrams came and went. Weeks passed on. It was agreed, Eugene would take a plane from Alabama to Athens and then a boat onwards to Oia. Merriell had prepped the house as well as he could: a pathetic thread-worn blanket on the couch, fresh bread on the counter and the best bottle of wine he could afford considering his small allowance.

It was a Sunday and the sky was cloudless, allowing enough empty space for the sun to shine down freely. Merriell walked down to the port and waited. His hands were shaking in his pockets.

A man with a fishing rod was sitting down by the water. There was something strangely hypnotic about watching the rod bend and reel before it was pulled up and out of the water, revealing a large goatfish with beady, silver eyes. A moment passed as the man hoisted the fish off of its hook and chucked its writhing body into a bucket.

The whole ordeal felt oddly prophetic. Merriell couldn’t quite figure out why. He was going to ask the man how much the fish cost but a voice broke through the sunlight and a body followed with it.

It was Eugene, alright. Not much had appeared to change at first glance, his hair had been freshly cut, and his face freshly shaven too. Altogether he seemed neat and tidy, but upon closer inspection Merriell noticed that he was skinnier, smaller, his eyes looked red and wet.

Eugene stopped his thoughts when he quietly said, “Hello, old pal.”

“Hello,” Merriell replied.

—-

—

-

“It’s awful back home, I tell you. I almost wept with relief when I got your telegram.” Eugene was sitting at the table opposite Merriell, he was already onto his second glass of wine. “My mother’s been nagging me to settle down ever since the war ended. It’s infuriating.”

“Have you?” Merriell lifted the wine glass to his lips and sipped it gingerly. “Settled down, I mean.”

“Christ, no!” Eugene laughed with such force that it almost seemed fake. “Well, almost but not really.”

“Not really?” A smirk teased at his lips. “Jesus Sledge, you’re inscrutable.”

Eugene smiled at him, it was different than before. “Inscrutable?”

“Yeah, you know—”

“I know what it means, you dope.” He reached for the pipe in his pocket and began packing tobacco into it, then looked up at Merriell teasingly. “I just didn’t realise you had such an eloquent vocabulary — you’re a regular Hemingway.”

“Why, thank you.” He stood up to fetch a lighter from the counter, then passed it to Eugene. “Now what’s all this talk of settling down?”

“I met this girl, Nancy — few months after I got home. We were seeing each other for a little while, she even met my folks and they all liked her, loved her even.” Eugene snapped the lighter open and sparked a flame. Tobacco smoke billowed out with the words, “But, I don’t know — it didn’t feel right.”

“No?” He murmured, meeting Eugene’s eyes. “Why’s that?”

Eugene shrugged, his gaze fell away from Merriell. “Just had a gut feeling, like things weren’t going to work out.”

“I’m sorry about that, Sledge.”

Eugene took a long drag of his pipe. “Water under the bridge. What about you, anyway? Is there some secret marriage I don’t know about?”

“I’m afraid not,” Merriell smiled. “Looks like we’re a couple of old spinsters.”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

—-

—

-

There was screaming in the night. Merriell woke with a start and peered around at his empty room like there might be ghosts hiding somewhere. The wailing was coming from the living room — Eugene.

He lit a candle and slipped through the doorway quietly, moving towards the couch where Eugene lay, writhing around in his blanket, eyes closed and muttering. He looked like the fish in the bucket, Merriell thought. Helpless, exposed. Alone.

“Sledge,” Merriell nudged him with his hand. “Wake up, blockhead.”

Eugene did not wake.

“Hey,” He shook Eugene’s shoulders, maybe a little too hard. “Wake up!”

Eugene sat up with a gasp, his eyes were blinking at the pace of Merriell’s own heartbeat. Barely a second passed before his hands scrabbled for the blanket and wrapped it around his shaking body.

“Sorry,” was all he said.

“S’alright,” Merriell tried to reach out and pat his shoulder, but Eugene pulled away like some wounded animal. “Happens to the best of us.”

“Yeah,” Eugene affirmed. A long moment passed. “Did you call me blockhead?”

—-

—

-

_What have they done to us? Are we men or just shells of those men we used to be?_

_—-_

_—_

_-_

Merriell took Eugene to the castle ruins on the hilltop with another bottle of wine. Neither had spoke very much since the screaming incident from the night before. Every look shared between them since then had been quick and awkward, one of them always glancing away before it could ever spark any conversation.

They sat down on a pile of chalky rubble to open the wine. Merriell pulled the cork out and took a long swig of it, then handed the bottle over to Eugene carefully, their hands grazing just slightly.

Eugene took a sip, then spluttered. Red wine dribbled down his chin and onto his neck making him look comically vampirish.

“That good, huh?”

Finally, Eugene laughed. “Jesus, what is that?”

“Cheapest thing I could find since we already drank the good stuff,” he pried the bottle away from Eugene’s hands. “Dessert wine, I think.”

“Got any dessert on you?”

“Afraid not, Sledgehammer.”

“Shame.”

They passed the bottle back and forth between one another for a long time, occasionally breaking the silence to point out a cloud or a plane like they were a pair of schoolboys. As the hours went on, the sunlight spilled into the sky like linseed oil, turning everything in its wake a gooey, golden honey color.

Eugene’s face was the purest of orange when he turned to face Merriell, “Who do you think used to live here?”

Merriell hummed, “Kings and queens, emperors and rulers.”

Eugene made a whistling sound with his teeth, “They must have had a damn good life.”

“Better than ours, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t know,” Eugene said. “There was just as much war back then. Roman emperors probably sent their sons to die for stupid reasons.”

“Seems like you can’t escape it, huh.” He meant for it to come out as a joke but neither of them were laughing.

A long moment. Time didn’t seem to be passing, it was just staying in one place, unmoving. There was probably a better word for it, Merriell figured, how time was different for the desolate and despairing.

“Why did you leave Louisiana?"

Merriell answered his question with another question, “Why did you leave Mobile?”

Eugene worried his lip between his teeth. “I — I can’t explain it. I would try, but I can’t.”

“Well, I can’t either.” A sigh fell out from Merriell’s lips and landed in the air. Somehow it made the silence worse. “Does there need to be an explanation for everything?”

Eugene ran a hand through his cropped hair, then held his head in hands. “Yes, for me, there has to be.”

The sun was going down. The orange light was getting brighter, more intense. Merriell closed his eyes for a moment as Eugene’s voice cut through the silence:

“I guess —” he paused, something caught in his throat. “It was like I was a ghost, but not really because — because there were all these other men, soldiers that were ghosts too — they would just wander past you, there was nothing going on behind their eyes, it was like — like they were dead.”

“It’s like that everywhere. What did I tell you, it’s inescapable.”

“Sometimes when I would walk into town, I would see random men break down on the street, just burst into tears for no reason.” Eugene shook his head. “And no one cared, no one would blink an eye — I mean, people were used to it!”

“Everyone’s moved on but us,” Merriell let the light fall into his eyes. “We’re a dying species, Sledge.”

They kept their eyes on the fading sun. Eugene said, “But what are we supposed to do? How the hell are we meant to live like this?”

Merriell felt like he was holding the entire sun in his eyes. “I don’t know, Sledgehammer. I don’t know.”

—-

—

-

At home: Ellington on the record player. Merriell wrote in his moleskin notebook while Eugene drained another bottle of wine. Neither of them had the energy to speak, there was a certain coldness in the air that hung above them like a thunder cloud.

They shared the last of the honey cake that Merriell had picked up from the local bakery, ate it slowly and carefully and quietly under the smouldering glow of the candlelight in the kitchen, then went back to their silences, retreating to the couch without a word.

To talk in this moment would be like drowning, Merriell thought to himself, and returned to scribbling in his notebook.

Eugene broke the silence first, “What are you writing?”

“Just things.”

“Things?”

“My inner-most darkest thoughts.”

A smile cracked through the glumness on Eugene’s face. “You sick bastard.”

They started laughing even though it wasn’t really that funny. Merriell closed his notebook and looked at Eugene properly for the first time in days. The sun had brought out a cluster of freckles around his nose as well as a slight tan that gave him a boyish, baby-faced glow. He wondered what Eugene thought of him now, if he looked the same as he did all those years ago, if he noticed anything different.

“Haven’t been able to write since Okinawa, you know.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” a dry chuckle escaped his lips. “Every time I pick up a pen I feel sick.”

“That’s a damn shame,” said Merriell. “You were always good at making words look pretty on paper.”

Eugene snorted, “Sure, sure. Whatever you say.”

“It’s true! I used to read everything you wrote while you were asleep.”

“You scoundrel,” he laughed with disbelief. “I wrote most of that shit in a fever dream.”

“Well, it was still good.”

Eugene blushed. It was the first time Merriell had ever seen him do so and something in his heart tore at the sight of it. The whole thing was sickeningly cliche.

A sound came from outside the window — thunder. The clouds cast off a torrent of rain. 

“Want some coffee?”

Eugene nodded his head slowly, “Always.”

—-

—

-

Midnight: Merriell woke to the sound of Eugene screaming again. It was sadder this time — the tone of his cries in the darkness. He wandered over to the couch and gently prodded him awake.

“Again?” Eugene said blearily.

“Yeah,” Merriell sat down on the floor beside the couch. “I don’t mind though.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands. “I guess I’m broken.”

“You’re fine,” Merriell stretched his arms out behind his back and yawned. “I’ll make more coffee.”

Eugene watched as he passed through the doorway. The rain had stopped outside.

—-

—

-

_The enormity of my own suffering disgusts me — how to deal with it? Put it away, in a box, let it get soft and mushy at the bottom. Bury it, never bring it up, mourn it like I mourned for my dead brothers in Pelelieu and Okinawa._

_And Eugene — poor Eugene, my Eugene… The wine drinking is a problem. But then again, it is a problem for me too. It is a problem for everybody probably. Sometimes I want to hold him and crush him with the weight of my arms. Sometimes I want to do more than that…_

_It is the saddest thing — to watch someone fall apart when you yourself are tearing at the seams._

—-

—

-

The day was planned out: bacon and eggs for breakfast, a trip to the vineyard, dinner at a cozy restaurant, then a quick paddle down by the shore. Things took longer that originally thought. Eugene was a slow eater and made sure to take his time dragging his cutlery across the plate, even taking the odd break just to extract a few drags of smoke from that ridiculous pipe of his. Activities were set back by hours, things were re-adjusted.

Merriell did not mind. He couldn’t ever mind.

It was almost dark by the time they arrived at the water. They bought several bottles of wine at the vineyard to last the rest of the week, only Eugene had already made his way through the second of four. 

Eugene began stripping off into his boxers. The water looked choppier than usual, something to do with the previous night’s rainstorm probably.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea anymore,” Merriell stared down at his own reflection in the waves. “We should head home.”

“Come on,” Eugene was wobbling on his feet. “The water looks nice.”

“Sure it does,” Merriell tried to meet his eyes but Eugene wouldn’t let him. “I just don’t want to be dragging your drunk-ass out of it when you get tired.”

Eugene waved him off with a lazy flick of his wrist. “I’m not a damn baby. I won’t get tired.”

A long sigh, “Well, alright then.”

Before Merriell could unbutton his shirt Eugene was already in the water. He was laughing in the darkness and splashing around. Worry was eating away at Merriell like a parasite as he slowly waded into the waves.

“Don’t go out too far.” Merriell tried to shout, tried and failed.

“No fair!” A voice answered from the distance. Merriell couldn’t really see him anymore. The anxiety was a bitter taste in his mouth.

A wave rushed in from nowhere, throwing Merriell under it and onto the seabed. Panic set in after the initial calm. He looked around and found a pair of limbs floating ahead of him, didn’t think, just swam, as fast as he could. He pulled Eugene up out of the water and clung to him as the sea spat them back out onto the sand.

“Jesus fucking christ,” Merriell wiped the salt-water out of his eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

Eugene doubled over on his knees as a flood of watery, red-wine vomit spilled out of his mouth. The waves rushed up the sand and washed it away in an instant, cleaning the mess, the slate, as if it was never even there, never even happened. He stopped vomiting after a minute, then rolled over on his back and took a long, bracing breath.

“You can’t just lie there.”

Eugene closed his eyes. “Why not?”

“It’s like you want me to be your fucking mamma sometimes.” Merriell stared down at him. His eyes were dark and passionless. “Get up.”

Eugene didn’t. Merriell took him by the arms and dragged him over to a rock so he could rest up against it. He couldn’t hold his head up, his eyelids were flickering sleepily.

“You’re acting like a child, you know that?”

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuck you.”

Eugene coughed some more, then craned his head to meet Merriell’s eyes. He didn’t answer.

“You know, I didn’t get to grieve when it was all said and done,” it erupted out of Merriell. He was saying this more for himself than for Eugene. “I had to work and slave and put on a big fucking smile in Louisiana, unlike you, who got to mope around on your big country estate, spending your family’s money on booze!”

Eugene laughed. It was awful, it cut Merriell right down to his very core. He stifled it.

“At least I can talk about it. You just want to pretend it never happened.”

“Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life reliving it like I’m some fucking war hero!” Merriell laughed back. “Because guess what, Eugene — we weren’t war heroes, we never were — I mean, we were just kids, idiot kids that didn’t have a single clue about the war and what it meant, why we were fighting.”

Eugene just shook his head and said, “You’re exactly like the rest of them, you think you can just move on.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because, how could you?” There were tears in his eyes now, pain and frustration building. “We saw everyone die. Good and bad. Men and women. Young and old.”

“I know, I was there!”

“Were you? Really?” Eugene was sobbing now, but he was too drunk to process it. “I mean, I thought it would be different — this would be different! I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, so when you sent that telegram I thought maybe! — maybe there was finally someone who would understand, who would listen.”

“I am listening!” He could feel his heartbeat thumping in his throat, maybe he was going to vomit too.

“You’re not!” He scrunched his eyes shut. “There’s something wrong with me and everyone else is just — fine!”

He was trying not to be angry. “There’s nothing wrong with you! I do understand — understand more than you could ever know.”

The silence was overwhelming when it finally settled. It hit like a punch in the throat.

“I get so angry sometimes,” a sob freed itself from his throat. “None of it makes sense anymore. I’m not in control.”

“No one is,” Merriell crouched down next to him and stared at his bare feet in the sand.

Eugene sucked in a long breath through his teeth. “I can’t move on, I’ve tried and I just can’t — I can’t forget.”

“Then, what can I do? What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing,” the tears slipped down his cheeks and into his mouth. “There’s nothing…”

“Listen,” his tongue was numb in his mouth. He’d been biting it. “I’m sorry, Sledge.”

“Don’t,” he smudged the tears away with the back of his hand. “Don’t, it’s alright.”

The moonlight fell onto Eugene’s wet skin and stayed there, shining like the scales on a fish. Merriell turned and looked at him without fear, without care. He still knew where to find Eugene’s birthmark, just under the nape of his neck, still knew all the places where he had suffered from a slice of shrapnel or a passing bullet. He would always know where to find these scars and marks — he could try to forget the war, but he could never forget Eugene. It was both a blessing and a curse.

“I,” the words stopped and started like a broken record player. “I know I’ve been an ass, Sledge — not as open as you want me to be, maybe. But when we were out there, in the dark and in the mud, well — it’s stupid I know — but you were my beacon of light.”

Eugene cracked open an eyelid. He was out of breath, as if just tired from being. “I was?”

“Beacon of light is probably not the best term,” he laughed, and Eugene laughed too. “But, you were.”

“Thanks,” a smile broke through the misery, but cracked and faded a little. It looked like he might cry again. “I suppose, you were mine too.”

Under the dim light of the moon he felt transparent and as though Eugene could see right through him. Like, maybe he was disappearing, or already gone, to another time and place.

“I wish I could take it away,” Merriell said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“I could try.”

“Well, then you’d be a saint.”

Merriell didn’t think. He turned Eugene’s hand over in his and held it gently. They looked at one another in the thin moonlight and didn’t look away. Everything got darker, weirder. It seemed like they were floating there for a long time — doing nothing, saying nothing, until Eugene cupped Merriell’s face in his hand.

Something cosmic and divine was pulling them together, they couldn’t draw back, it wasn’t possible. Merriell surged forward and kissed Eugene hard and soft and rough until a weight lifted off of his head and dissolved into the darkness.

Eugene pushed back against him and bit his lip. Blood mixed with saliva mixed with wine. His mouth went to Merriell’s neck and kissed it with all the love and hate he could possibly procure in his body. The fact of their bodies pressed up against each other and sloppily moving, hands hovering over skin, burning holes through flesh, burning burning burning.

Eugene pulled Merriell down to the wet sand with him and stared up into his eyes. He was surprisingly forward.

“Shall we do it here?”

“Here?”

“Yes,” his hands ran through Merriell’s hair. “Here.”

Eugene knew Merriell did not need to answer. They clutched onto one another with such desperation that it seemed like they had never experienced human touch before. There was something scary and lonely and reminiscent of war-times in the air that Merriell could not help but kiss him like there was no tomorrow, no future, no nothing.

—-

—

-

They went home and took a bath together. Merriell soaped the sand out of Eugene’s hair and made sure none of it got in his eyes. The radio was on and playing Patti Page so they listened like a pair of old widows remembering the dead.

Shortly after, the two of them piled into Merriell’s bed together and lay in the quiet darkness. Neither knew where to put their arms or legs. They shifted around in the blankets, unable to sleep or speak.

At last, Merriell said, “Jesus. Just come here.”

Eugene sidled up against Merriell and into his arms. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” said Merriell, stupidly. His eyes were focusing and unfocusing on the dip and rise of Eugene’s shoulders as he breathed.

“I tried to kill myself, you know.”

Merriell blinked, “What?”

“A few months after I got home.”

“How?”

“Stole a bottle of pills from my father.”

“Right,” the moonlight shifted on Merriell’s face. “Okay.”

“I’m better now. I think.”

It was an obvious lie.

“Why?”

“Bit of a stupid question, don’t you think?”

Eugene was right. Merriell sighed, “Yeah, I suppose. Sorry.”

“I felt like an idiot after it anyway,” Eugene laughed, though he wasn’t sure why. “I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom by myself for a whole month. Jesus, it was awful.”

“You won’t do it again, will you?”

“God, no.”

“Good,” his arms tightened around Eugene. “I couldn’t stand it if you died.”

Eugene snickered to himself, “If I did, would you stand by my grave and weep?”

“No, I would dance on it.”

“Glad to hear you haven’t gone soft on me,” Eugene craned his neck to meet Merriell’s eyes. “Will you be performing the Charleston or Tap. I should let my mother know in advance —”

Merriell socked him in the arm with a grin. “Shut up, will you?”

“Nope,” said Eugene, who leaned forward and kissed him again.

—-

—

-

_The bread in my mouth is for you. The blood on my hands is yours. Can there be such a thing as being asleep if there was no such thing as being awake? And no dying without living?_

_—-_

_—_

_-_

There was one night where neither of them had the energy to talk or kiss or even fuck. This was not necessarily a bad thing — it had become so hot that even the cold darkness could not wash away the mugginess in the air.

Eugene got up from the bed and moved towards the floor. Merriell rested his head on his hands, watching him, unsure if this was the start of a sleep-induced dream or not.

“What are you doing?” He whispered.

“Come lie,” Eugene disappeared under the bed and out of sight. “It’s cooler down here.”

The stone floor was a mistake, Merriell realised as he settled down onto it. “This is horrible.”

“Stop complaining,” a whisper came. “It’s not so bad.”

Merriell’s hand drifted up to Eugene’s bare back and began tracing it. He drew loops and circles at first, then changed to numbers and wrote them again and again.

“What is that?” Eugene asked sleepily. “What are you writing?”

“A number,” Merriell smiled cheerily. “Can you guess what it is?”

A long moment passed as his hand ran up and down Eugene’s back again, each strike and line as precise as possible.

“Fifteen,” Eugene said. “Is that it?”

“Correct. There isn’t a prize for winning though.”

“Why fifteen?”

“Hell, I’m not sure.”

Something changed in Eugene. “Fifteenth of August, that’s why.” He shrunk up.

“What’s the fifteenth of August?”

“VJ Day.”

Eugene pulled away from him. There was no more to be said.

—-

—

-

_I feel so thin-skinned and delicate that if anybody dares look at me I’ll burst into tears. Doesn’t matter — have to stay strong for E._

_—-_

_—_

_-_

All day he had been thinking of Greek tragedies.

When they sat down at the table to eat the next night, Merriell asked, “You could stay here, if you wanted.”

Eugene set his knife and fork down on his plate, looked up and smiled. “Mother’ll be missing me.”

“You said you couldn’t stand her.”

He just shrugged. “She’s my mother, Snaf.”

“Yeah,” he shook his head. “Sorry.”

Eugene’s hand reached across the table and held Merriell’s. “I’ll come back.”

—-

—

-

In bed, at home: afraid of saying anything. A lingering feeling in the air. Merriell carefully and slowly pulled himself out from under Eugene’s arm and went to the kitchen to make coffee. He turned the radio on — slow, soft jazz — then snapped it off almost immediately.

Some odd, horrid, phantom pain was brewing inside of him. Words could not explain it, it just was. He knew the pain would worsen when Eugene left, he knew it would probably get better as time went on, but what he knew even more was that it would never really go away. Not completely.

The kettle whistled. He poured the coffee and nursed it by the window, staring at the sun, feeling it on his face.

“You’re up early,” Eugene shuffled out from the bedroom and towards Merriell. “Is there something I’m missing?”

“No,” Merriell didn’t turn to meet his eyes. “Just couldn’t sleep is all.”

“Really?” A smirk broke onto Eugene’s face and stayed there. “Well, we can do something about that.”

It happened on the kitchen floor. This time it was not romantic. This time it was desperate and sad and painfully vulnerable. It was an ending of sorts, they both knew this deep down. Each time they touched it felt as if they were taking parts of each other away, little parts — three-fourths of a heart, one-third of a rib, five-quarters of a freckle or dimple.

“Can I say something stupid?” Eugene asked later, on the beach, his hands sinking into the sand.

Merriell grinned nervously. “Everything you say is stupid.”

“Thanks buddy,” he slapped a handful of wet sand onto Merriell’s lap. “Nice to know.”

“Son of a bitch,” Merriell scooped the sand up, moved to throw it back at Eugene. “These are my best clothes.”

Eugene cocked a brow, “Sure they are.”

“Alright, go on. Say something stupid, I’m listening.”

“Me and the guys used to call you Sunny behind your back.”

“Sunny?”

“Yeah,” Eugene’s eyes went down to his hands. “Because of how depressing you’d be.”

“They thought I was the depressing one?” Merriell elbowed him. “What about you?”

“I don’t know,” Eugene shrugged. “Everyone went along with it, thought it was funny, but — but really, I think I called you that because you were like the sun.”

“What? You’re really burying the lede here, Sledge.”

“I mean, you were like the sun!” Eugene said eventually, laughing. “You were this star that gave everyone — gave _me!_ — warmth and light and heat but if I got too close I’d go blind, or burn.”

Merriell went soft and doughy in the middle, he hated it, treasured it. “Like the sun, huh?”

“Yes, like the sun.”

“That is really stupid,” he said, looking back at Eugene with confused delight. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

—-

—

-

“I’ll send a telegram, soon as I’m home.” Eugene said, standing boyishly tall.

They were waiting at the port. Merriell smiled, “I know you will.”

“I will, really.” Eugene affirmed, nodding his head. His hand brushed Merriell's delicately, softly. “I’m like a parasite: there’s no getting get rid of me.”

He scuffed his fingers over Eugene’s knuckle. “How romantic.”

Eugene looked at Merriell and Merriell looked at Eugene and the early morning light spilled out from the sky like water overflowing from a bathtub. Eugene reached his hand up to Merriell’s face, held it, measured it, traced his finger over each and every contour on his skin, smoothing out the jagged edges.

“You won’t do anything stupid, will you?”

It looked like Eugene was going to say something smart. “No,” his smile cracked then tried to repair itself. “I won’t.”

“Good.”

“I’m going to miss the boat,” he turned away. “But I’ll be seeing you.”

His lanky arms latched onto Merriell, held on tight, maybe a little too tight. Merriell attempted to gather his heart in his hands and explain it, tear it open and show Eugene what was inside. 

“Eugene,” the words collapsed in his mouth. “I lo —”

“You don’t have to say it,” he looked back at Merriell. “I know.”

It wasn’t that they couldn’t say “I love you” but that there was something bigger and more cosmic behind “I love you” that they did not have the words for, that they could not articulate even if they wanted to.

“Goodbye Shelton,” his eyes were red and wet but he was smiling. It was the most wonderful smile in the world, Merriell thought. “I’ll see you soon.”

Merriell watched him get onto the boat. “Goodbye Sledge.”

—-

—

-

_We’ll go swimming in the sea one day and we’ll be able to tell each other everything. We’ll go swimming one day and you’ll love me and I’ll love you and we’ll be together again._

_—_

_—_

_-_

“ _Though he was already old and quaking, Eros led him by the hand. As he passed by he took the wreath from his head and gave it to me. And I stupidly took it and bound it around my forehead and ever since, I have been mad with the sting of love.”_

**Author's Note:**

> the quote at the end is translated by Thomas McEvilley from an ancient greek poem called "Anacreontea" if anyone is interested! i tried to research as much as possible and i'm hoping it's as historically accurate as it can be but do let me know if i've gotten anything wrong.


End file.
